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About a month before my first year after transplant was up, I was given a call by Kim Brundrit of the UBMDR, who asked if I wanted to meet my donor. Did I want to meet my donor? Of course I did!! It turned out there was a Red Cross awards ceremony happening in Calgary for blood donors, and bone marrow donors. They wanted to fly me out to meet Jan, and to speak at this ceremony. I was very happy to do this for several reasons: I had never been west,and the most importantly, I wanted to meet Jan. I flew out to Calgary on a Tuesday, and was met by a Red Cross volunteer, who was amazing. She didn't like the hotel I was to be put up in, (it was rather creepy) and got me all switched around to a downtown hotel, which was much nicer. Jan and Derik (her husband) were driving in, and arrived later that night. Although I had talked with Jan on the phone previously, I was eager to meet Jan in person. I was so excited when they finally arrived. That night, we went out for a later dinner, and talked and talked and talked! The next day, we drove out to Canmore, and met Jan's brother, who is the golf pro at the Canmore golf course, and had brunch. We then drove out to Banff. It is so beautiful out there, the mountains are gorgeous, and seeing them with Jan and Derik was an undescribably amazing experience. Later that day we spoke to the media before the awards ceremony, and gave a talk at the awards ceremony about our experiences. Both Jan and I were in tears. I feel that I haven't done a very good job describing the experience in this short amount of space - but I will say that I am not sure words could ever do it justice. And a post script:
on August 21, 1999, Jan and Derik gave birth to their first child, a
daughter. |